The Crown continued its winter awards season reign at the 2021 SAG Awards, winning two prizes: best actress in a drama series and best ensemble in a drama series.
The series went into Sunday night nominated for best ensemble in a drama series, male actor in a drama series (Josh O’Connor) and female actor in a drama series (Gillian Anderson, Olivia Colman and Emma Corrin). While O’Connor lost to Ozark‘s Jason Bateman, Anderson won best actress and the show won best ensemble in a drama series.
Anderson thanked SAG-AFTRA and fellow nominees Ozark‘s Laura Linney and Julia Garner and The Crown‘s Colman and Corrin. She also thanked the Crown ensemble, which she said, “has not got enough attention for all of the depth that you bring to every episode,” as she listed the actors who comprise the show’s cast. Colman, who accepted the ensemble award as she was joined by other cast members, including O’Connor and Corrin, in separate video windows read all of the names of the winning cast. Both Anderson and Colman thanked SAG-AFTRA and The Crown creator Peter Morgan.
Anderson thanked Morgan for “creating so many multi-dimensional roles for all of us actors to sink our teeth into.”
Colman also expressed her appreciation for the U.K.’s “wonderful National Health Service.”
“During this very peculiar year, we’re very lucky, in the U.K., to have you,” she said of the health care system amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The fourth season of the Netflix drama about the British royal family has collected numerous trophies over the past two months, winning multiple awards from the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards and taking home the top small-screen drama prizes from the Producers and Writers Guilds.
The third season of The Crown, the first featuring the series’ second main cast, won the best drama series ensemble award at the 2020 SAG Awards.
The series, which intends to explore Queen Elizabeth II’s reign over multiple decades, will undergo its third and final cast change ahead of its fifth season. But, perhaps to the relief of next year’s drama series awards hopefuls, season five isn’t set to drop until 2022. The series is set to end with its sixth season.
The latest season covers the years in which Margaret Thatcher, played by Anderson, became the U.K.’s first female prime minister and Princess Diana (Corrin) stole the spotlight as she married Prince Charles (O’Connor) despite troubles in Diana and Charles’ union behind closed doors.
